The Man who believed he would live forever – and needed to make no succession plans for CBS or Viacom is gone. In recent days, shareholders filed lawsuits claiming that Sumner Redstone was being paid to do a job that he was incapable of doing. His ex-girlfriend has been trying to wrestle control of the company is away from Sumner and his daughter .
http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/cbs-moonves-chairman-sumner-redstone-1201696108/
CBS radio has been “in play” for some time. The stations are generally still quite profitable, but so 20th-century. New leadership may want to divest some or all of the stations. Perhaps Mel Karmazin would like to run CBS radio again, since he no longer is needed at Sirius XM.
Viacom showed him the exit door as well.
Redstone has about as much money as God – I don’t think he will be hurting. Time to retire to another milieu perhaps.
Having too much money can be a burden. The current plan is if he dies or is deemed incompetent, his money goes into a trust for his grandkids. If you remember the three generation rule, he is generation two. His dad made the fortune running movie theaters. His daughter is generation three. She doesn’t want to run the company, which is typical of generation three. The prospect of generation four are bleak, having not the vaguest memory of how the money was made. The older I get, the more a high estate tax seems reasonable. Inherited money invariably destroys people.
Hah – I will gladly take the estate tax proceeds. I “guarantee” to be philanthropic.
Viacom is cratering. Apparently investors were hoping that Sumner’s guy running Viacom would get the Heave Ho
Caption the photo at the top of this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/business/media/when-family-fortunes-beget-vicious-power-struggles.html?ref=topics&_r=0
Good luck topping what a buddy of mine came up with:
“They look like two giant ticks standing beside what’s left of the dog they were on…”
“Make a wish!”